Bad attitude? Most probability. But after a while you just have to say how much is enough. OK, let me beat the dead horse. So much has been written about the debacle with the American Music Festival and Daytona State College College, you're probably sick of reading about it and most bloggers are sick of writing about it. But allow me one more time.
The Daytona Beach News Journal in a Feb. 17 story by Deborah Circelli finally published the dollar amount of what was actually paid to the artists for the American Music Festival series beginning in July.
I have been trying to get that information for weeks to no avail. The NJ sites the “Daytona State College Preliminary Internal Audit” as its source. So I would now like to give you my opinion.
By way of establishing my personal credentials, check out my web page at RMartoranoProductions.com and you will see that I have, over the years, performed in and/or produced several hundreds of thousands of dollars in celebrity productions. A few hundreds of thousands dollars worth of those productions right here in East Coast Central Florida.
After all my efforts, I am probably at 50% in those concerts that were successful and those that I lost money on. I consider myself an authority on what will work in this demographic because I have the concert failures to prove it.
Let me give you the initial idea for the American Music Festival – not forgetting that the whole idea behind the festival pitched by the silver-tongue devil himself, Manuel Bornia, and bought entirely by the Daytona Beach City Commission and Dr. Kent Sharples of DSC (which, as we know, cost him his job) was to "rebrand" the city.
How do you begin to rebrand the image of our locale when the visitors you will bring to an event are mostly day trippers who already know our community. The concerts were going to join together the beachside with the downtown Beach Street. This is an effort that has been tried multitude times in the 30 years I have been in business in this community with limited success.
The beachside with its motels, gift shops, restaurants etc. wants nothing to do with the mainland and it has the professional associations to make that idea heard.
Now for the fees paid to the performers. Keep in mind as you read this that we are talking about a beach town with the median income of less then $40,000 and the average median age of well over 60.
We are talking about a beach town who within 75 miles driving distance has the “Entertainment Capital of the World” producing on a monthly basis doing what we were going attempt to do once a year. Remembering my stats above about our community demographic and also remember – the agent that booked these concerts in Orlando gets 20% of the fee.
Here we go: Usher - $500,000 – Audience demographic - Age 21-35;
-- Huey Lewis - $125,000 - demographic - Age 35-50;
-- Tony Bennett - $115,000 - demographic - Age 45-75;
-- Jonas Brothers - $300,000;- demographic - Age 18-35;
-- Demi Lovato – $75,000 -Opening act for the Jonas Brothers - Age demographic - Age 16-25;
-- Blake Shelton - $75,000 - Age demographic - Age 18 -35;
-- Earl Klugh - $15,000 - Age demographic - Age 40- 75.
I could go on but why bother? The total dollars spent on talent was $1.5 million. It should be noted the college is still owed more than a million dollars.
Let me give you some financials on what to expect from a concert. These are the numbers used by most producers in support of the success of an event: 60% of the artist’s fees will come from single ticket sales, 15% from supporters and/or advertisors, 10% from Series ( if so available), 10% from Parking 5% from food and drink sales.
Tell me with the artists fees quoted above how this event could have possibly succeeded? OK. Enough sour grapes. I am done talking about this until the same thing happens again, and believe me, it will.
In a few years, maybe sooner, another silver-tongue devil will talk a lot of jive to the new elected city commissioners and we will go through another chapter like the last one.
Someone will want to rebrand the Central Florida Southeast coast cities but this time. I will be on a tropical island or a cruise ship with my beautiful wife and its not my problem. Bad attitude? Most probably, but after a while you just have to ask how much is enough?